Nowadays musicological correctness insists that every note of Rachmaninov's Second Symphony be heard, and that the cuts a previous generation of conductors routinely made (which sometimes removed as much as 20 minutes' music from a work that last a little over an hour) are unacceptable. Yet it's still a rare performance that does not produce at least the passing thought that those conductors may have had a point.

Mark Elder's account with the Hallé was one of the exceptions, demonstrating that every note of Rachmaninov's score matters, and that every lovingly long transition and harmonic sideslip has its place in a symphonic scheme that ebbs and flows compellingly. Every paragraph was glorious, and the orchestral playing demonstrated that the Hallé continues to make great strides under Elder's careful stewardship.

Elgar's Sea Pictures sometimes seems problematic, too, but in that case the difficulty lies in the Victorian verses that Elgar chose to set. It's not just the poem by his wife, which is often singled out for ridicule: some of the others are no great shakes either. But the beautifully judged and coloured singing by contralto Jane Irwin, a late replacement for Alice Coote, emphasised the music's beauties. Her attention to verbal detail and phrasing were immaculate, while Elder brought out the work's anticipations of later, greater Elgar (the cycle was completed in 1899, after the Enigma Variations and immediately before The Dream of Gerontius).

The concert had begun with a wonderfully spacious account of the overture to Wagner's Rienzi, to which Elder typically brought the tang of the opera house. Even the faster section that seems uncomfortably close to Meyerbeer (an influence the mature Wagner was quick to disown) had its dramatic point and was fitted perfectly into the musical scheme.